Friday, November 27, 2009

ARAFAT, Saudi Arabia -- Iranian hajj pilgrims carried out a peaceful protest without incident on Thursday as millions of Muslims amassed for the peak of the world's largest annual pilgrimage.

Ignoring Saudi warnings against political activity, the Iranians chanted for Muslim unity and against the "enemies" of the faith in their camp at Arafat outside of Mecca.

"Death to America, death to Israel," thousands of Iranians chanted inside a huge tent on the Arafat plain.

No Saudi security forces were evident as Ayatollah Muhammed Rishari, the representative of Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, led the Iranian delegation.

"We need to be purified from our wrongdoings in this hajj," he said in a statement.

"We need all Muslims, Sunni and Shiite, to be unified and focus on important issues: Al-Aqsa (mosque in Jerusalem), the occupation of Palestine, the problems in Iraq, the Afghan occupation, and the fighting between brothers in Yemen. We need be purified from all infidels."

Sounds so peaceful, doesn't it?

And how are Muslims here in Malaysia going to respond to this? The way they usually do at these sort of things...be silent, or silently agree with their fellow Muhammadans.

All these wonderful Muslims must be tragic misunderstanders of Islam, the (ahem) "Religion of Peace, Nonviolence and Tolerance". Yeah, right!